Taney County, in Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Taney County lies within the Ozarks — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Taney County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Taney County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Taney County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Taney County — the short answer
Taney County, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 405K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 405K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 7a is Taney County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Taney County's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Taney County
Across a year, Taney County accumulates about 3,924 growing degree days above 50°F, about 171 more than the middle Missouri county — ahead of 90 of Missouri’s 115 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 2,424 hours below 45°F. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Taney County
Across Taney County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Gasconade, Ocie, and Gatewood are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a very gravelly silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.4–7.0, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
4%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Taney County
The USDA soil survey maps 37% of Taney County as moderately well drained — but another 63% drains differently: 34% well drained, 23% somewhat excessively drained.
Gasconade is the most extensive named soil at 24% of mapped acres, then Ocie (24%) and Gatewood (24%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Taney County
Each reading below is measured for Taney County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Taney County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group D — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Taney County runs about pH 5.4–7.0, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredTaney County runs about 226 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredTaney County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Taney County is in
Taney County sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Taney County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Taney County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 226-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile.
Is it too late to plant in Taney County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Taney County
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Taney County
USGS estimates 13,220 lb of 2,4-d on Taney County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (1,580 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (220 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Taney County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Taney County — 203 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Taney County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Taney County
Closest first, across Taney County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- T23N R20W 01DAA1Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- ROBERTSON 66Underground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- NEXT TO KISSEE MILLS GENERAL STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- WYATT CABINETRY AND CUSTOM WOODWORKINGBrownfields · 3.9 mi
- FORSYTH CLEANERSBrownfields · 3.9 mi
- T23N R20W 04ACC1Nitrate · 3.9 mi
- T24N R20W 34BAC1Nitrate · 4.0 mi
- EDGEWATER BEACH RESORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- TANEY COUNTY PWSD 2PFAS · 4.6 mi
- T24N R20W 32DAB1Nitrate · 5.0 mi
- CITY OF FORSYTHUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.0 mi
- FORSYTH AMOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Taney County's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Taney County.
Sources Checked
across Taney County
Severity Distribution
across Taney County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Taney County, two things run higher than the national average across Taney County — PFAS (8 sites) and Mining (12 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Taney County
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Taney County average
Your land is one point inside Taney County
Everything above resolves to Taney County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 405K acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at county scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better county average.
Your Lot vs the Taney County Average
Taney County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Taney County
- ●One soil character for all of Taney County
- ●Frost dates read at Taney County's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Taney County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Taney County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Taney County, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Taney County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Taney County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Taney County average
How we know this about Taney County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Taney County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Taney County
When does frost risk typically end in Taney County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Taney County typically lands around Mar 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Apr 17.
How long is the growing season in Taney County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Taney County sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Oct 25, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Taney County?
The federal record around Taney County runs heavier than most — 203 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (116), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.5 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Taney County's scale — its 7a band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Taney County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Missouri's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Taney County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Taney County's own scale — its own ~226-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 203 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Taney County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Taney County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Taney CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 203 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Taney County's boundary and the 404,648 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Taney County sitting wholly inside the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Taney County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Taney County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Missouri grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Missouri
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Taney County — the ~226 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Taney County's 404,648 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 203 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Taney Countyread your own land →